SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 11, 2024--
Cyrus Biotechnology, Inc., a Seattle-based biotechnology company with a novel hybrid AI/screening platform for biologics discovery, will present the company’s capabilities in protein engineering and therapeutics risk mitigation at the inaugural Hit ID Summit in Boston, Tuesday November 12 at 1pm at the Boston Back Bay Hilton. The presentation by Dr. Yifan Song, Chief Science Officer (CSO) and Cyrus Co-founder will also include preclinical work validating a next generation IgG-degrader (Immunoglobulin degrading enzyme from S. pyogenes, IdeS) for autoimmune disease and gene therapy pre-treatment. The IdeS program demonstrates the utility of Cyrus’s protein engineering platform for optimizing biologics to build validated, derisked, and readily manufacturable development candidates.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241111944864/en/
In the presentation, Dr. Song will demonstrate Cyrus’s capabilities in developing a best-in-class IdeS using in silico AI, protein design algorithms from the 2024 Nobel Prize winning Baker Lab, and high-throughput laboratory screening. These have been used by Cyrus for dozens of collaborations including with Genentech, Janssen, and Selecta Bio. Cyrus’s IdeS candidate has been optimized for all the key therapeutic features, including serum half-life, enzymatic activity, stability, and B cell and T cell immunogenicity.
The presentation will show Cyrus’s IdeS candidate has substantially extended half-life and pharmacodynamics compared to the wild type IdeS, rapidly reducing serum IgG level and maintaining low IgG titers for at least 14 days in rabbits, compared to a duration of less than 7 days for the wild type.
Cyrus’s candidate which demonstrates near-wild-type IgG degrading activity in vitro and in vivo, can be titrated to achieve different degrees of IgG reduction, and is effective at very low doses.
Cyrus employs a proprietary platform for reducing the immunogenicity of protein therapeutics. The approved WT IdeS enzyme therapeutic elicits a very strong anti-IdeS antibody response upon first dose and is not redosable in the clinic. Cyrus has substantially reduced the binding of pre-existing anti-IdeS antibodies - by orders of magnitude in one assay format - and even in human sera with high anti-IdeS antibody titers.
Novel data generated in rabbits exhibits that Cyrus's reduced immunogenicity IdeS does not elicit anti-IdeS antibodies for a minimum of two weeks after administration, while wild type IdeS induces strong anti-IdeS antibodies under the same conditions (see figure below). In a multi-dose study, low doses of Cyrus’s IdeS retain strong activity upon repeat dosing while the WT IdeS loses efficacy after a first dose.
“These newly generated data, combined with titratable potency at very low doses, will permit Cyrus's IdeS to be administered via convenient subcutaneous injection at a frequency suitable for chronic indications such as autoimmune Immune Thrombocytopenia (ITP) and generalized Myasthenia Gravis (gMG),” said Lucas Nivon, Cyrus Biotechnology CEO and Co-founder. “The efficacy of IgG reduction has been shown by the FcRn inhibitor class in the clinic for gMG. Cyrus’s IdeS has more rapid IgG reduction, better IgG-lowering potency, and likely more convenient administration than the anti-FcRn class, with the potential for best-in-disease performance.”
Hit ID Summit
The Hit ID Summit provides the ideal environment for medicinal chemistry, computational chemists & drug discovery experts from both large pharma and biotechs to unite, share experiences & reach conclusions to be applied in hit screening strategies.
About Cyrus Biotechnology
Cyrus Biotechnology is a pre-clinical-stage AI-driven therapeutics company with an internal pipeline of novel biologics primarily in autoimmune indications. Cyrus is advancing a next generation IdeS IgG protease with half-life extension and immunogenicity optimization, for treatment of IgG-mediated autoimmune indications, into IND-enabling studies, as well as advancing multiple discovery stage cytokine programs. Cyrus was co-founded with Prof. David Baker, 2024 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, inventor of Rosetta and numerous protein design AI tools, and has worked with dozens of Pharma firms on protein redesign for novel therapeutics, including Genentech and Janssen, and has contributed to cytokine optimization with half a dozen partners. In 2021 Cyrus started to develop its own therapeutics.
For more information about Cyrus please visit https://cyrusbio.com/
NOTICE: The information contained in this document is dated as of November 11, 2024. Cyrus Biotechnology, Inc. (the Company) disclaims any obligation to update such information after such date. This document contains forward–looking statements reflecting the Company’s current expectations that necessarily involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results and the timing of events may differ materially from those contained in such forward-looking statements due to a number of factors and the Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the issuance of this press release.
Figure shows anti-IdeS antibody formation in rabbits after dosing with 1 mg/kg of WT IdeS (left) compared to 1 mg/kg of Cyrus reduced immunogenicity IdeS (right). (Graphic: Business Wire)
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis is installing 21 new cardinals, many of whom are key figures in his reform agenda: A Dominican preacher who acted as the spiritual father for Francis' recent gathering of bishops, a Neapolitan “street priest” like himself, and a Peruvian bishop who has strongly backed his crackdown on abuse.
Francis’ 10th consistory to create new princes of the church is also the biggest infusion of voting-age cardinals in his 11-year pontificate, further cementing his imprint on the group of men who will one day elect his successor. With Saturday's additions, Francis will have created 110 of the 140 cardinals under 80, thus eligible to vote in a conclave.
This consistory also brings the number of voting-age cardinals well over the 120-man limit set by St. John Paul II. But 13 existing cardinals will turn 80 next year, bringing the numbers back down.
This consistory is notable too because the 21 men being elevated aren’t the same ones Francis named Oct. 6 when he announced an unusual December consistory.
One of Francis’ original picks, Indonesian Bishop Paskalis Bruno Syukur, the bishop of Bogor, asked not to be made a cardinal “because of his desire to grow more in his life as a priest,” the Vatican said. Francis quickly substituted him with the Naples archbishop, Domenico Battaglia, known for his pastoral work in the slums and rough parts of Naples.
Battaglia is one of five Italians getting the red hat, keeping the once-dominant Italian presence in the College of Cardinals strong. Turin is getting a cardinal in its archbishop, Roberto Repole, as is Rome: Baldassare Reina, who on the same day Francis announced he was becoming a cardinal also learned that Francis had promoted him to be his top administrator for the diocese of Rome.
Francis, who is technically bishop of Rome, has been conducting a years-long reorganization of the Rome diocese and its pontifical universities. Reina – who is also grand chancellor of the pre-eminent Pontifical Lateran University – will be expected to execute the reform.
Another Italian is the oldest cardinal: Angelo Acerbi, a 99-year-old retired Vatican diplomat. He is the only one among the 21 new cardinals to be older than 80 and thus ineligible to vote in a conclave. Francis' picks on Saturday also include the youngest cardinal: the 44-year-old head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, Australia, Mykola Bychok.
Yet another Italian is one of two Vatican priests who do jobs in the Holy See that don’t usually carry the red hat: Fabio Baggio is undersecretary in the Vatican development office. Francis also decided to make a cardinal out of George Jacob Koovakad, the priest who organizes the pope’s foreign travels.
Other picks have high-profile roles in Francis’ reforms.
The archbishop of Lima, Peru, Carlos Gustavo Castillo Mattasoglio, made headlines recently because of an extraordinary essay he penned for El Pais newspaper in which he called for the suppression of an influential Peruvian Catholic movement, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, which also has a presence in the U.S.
Castillo called the group a “failed experiment” of the church in Latin America, one of several conservative, right-wing movements that cropped up in the 1970s and 1980s as a counterweight to the more left-leaning liberation theology.
“My hypothesis is that the Sodalitium obeys a political project,” Castillo wrote. “It is the resurrection of fascism in Latin America, artfully using the church by means of sectarian methods.”
Francis has recently expelled the Sodalitium's founder and several top members following a Vatican investigation.
Castillo is one of five new Latin American cardinals named by history’s first Latin American pope. They include the archbishop of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, Vicente Bokalic Iglic; the archbishop of Porto Alegre, Brazil, Jaime Spengler; the archbishop of Santiago, Chile, Fernando Natalio Chomali Garib and the archbishop of Guayaquil, Ecuador, Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera.
Francis has long sought to broaden the geographic diversity of the College of Cardinals to show the universality of the church, particularly where it is growing. Asia got two new cardinals: Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, the archbishop of Tokyo; and Pablo Virgilio Sinogco David, the bishop of Kalookan, Philippines. Africa also got two new cardinals: the archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Ignace Bessi Dogbo, and the bishop of Algiers, Algeria, Jean-Paul Vesco.
“There hasn’t been an African pope, but it’s a possibility in the church," Dogbo said in an interview on the eve of his installation. "And I think that this eventuality — which is not necessarily a demand — if this eventuality were to arise, the universal church would have to be ready to take it on.”
Francis also tapped the archbishop of Tehran, Iran, Dominique Joseph Mathieu, the bishop of Belgrade, Serbia, Ladislav Nemet, while the lone North American cardinal named is the archbishop of Toronto, Frank Leo.
The Lithuanian-born cardinal-elect, Rolandas Makrickas, has a special job in this pontificate: As the archpriest of the St. Mary Major basilica, he hosts Francis every time the pope returns from a foreign trip, since the pope likes to pray before an icon of the Madonna in the church. Additionally, Makrickas oversaw a recent financial reform of the basilica and would have been involved in identifying the future final resting place for Francis, since the Argentine pope has said he will be buried there.
Perhaps the most familiar new cardinal to anyone who has been following Francis’ reform agenda is the Dominican Timothy Radcliff, the spiritual father of the just-concluded synod, or gathering of bishops. The years-long process aimed to make the church more inclusive and responsive to the needs of rank-and-file Catholics, especially women.
A British theologian, the white-robed Radcliffe often provided clarifying, if not humorous interventions during the weeks-long debate and retreats. At one point he set off a mini-firestorm by suggesting that external financial pressures influenced African bishops to reject Francis' permission to allow blessings for gay couples. He later said he just meant that the African Catholic Church is under pressure from other well-financed faiths.
As the synod was winding down, he offered some valuable perspective.
“Often we can have no idea as to how God’s providence is at work in our lives. We do what we believe to be right and the rest is in the hands of the Lord,” he told the gathering. “This is just one synod. There will be others. We do not have to do everything, just try to take the next step.”
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Newly appointed cardinal Vicente Bokalic Iglic, archbishop of Santiago del Estero, Argentina meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Mykola Bychok, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, Australia, poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Mykola Bychok, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, Australia, poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal P. Timothy Peter Joseph Radcliffe, British theologian spiritual father of the just-concluded synod meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Ignace Bessi Dogbo archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal P. Timothy Peter Joseph Radcliffe, British theologian spiritual father of the just-concluded synod poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal P. Timothy Peter Joseph Radcliffe, British theologian spiritual father of the just-concluded synod poses for photos as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Vicente Bokalic Iglic, archbishop of Santiago del Estero, Argentina poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Rolandas Makrickas Lithuanian-born archpriest of the St. Mary Major basilica poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Mykola Bychok, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, Australia, poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal Ignace Bessi Dogbo archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Newly appointed cardinal P. Timothy Peter Joseph Radcliffe, British theologian spiritual father of the just-concluded synod poses as he meets journalists in the Vatican press room ahead of his elevation, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
